This invention relates to microbicidal coatings for discrete inorganic particles such as glass beads. Such coatings impart to their substrates a microbicidal effect, rendering those substrates and products made therefrom highly advantageous for use wherever sterile conditions are desired. Such uses include but are not limited to coating of substrates used in hospital fluidized beds and coating of substrates used in fibers for air filtration.
It is known that most microbicidal agents, to be effective, must penetrate the cell structure of the microbes they destroy. This means that most microbicidal agents would lose their effectiveness if they were surface hindered, that is, if they were attached to the surface of a substrate such that they could not be absorbed into the cell structure of attacked microbes. However agents which are not surface hindered are lost from the substrate over a period of time such that the microbicidal property of the substrate is diminished and cannot be regenerated.
Isquith et al. reported in the December, 1972 issue of Applied Microbiology, at pages 859-863, that the hydrolysis product of 3-(trimethoxysilyl)-propyldimethyloctadecyl ammonium chloride exhibited microbicidal activity against a broad range of microorganisms while chemically bonded to a variety of surfaces. However, Isquith et al. treated only large single surfaces with their microbicidal compound, and did not undertake to ascertain the effectiveness of other surface hinderable microbicidal compounds which might be desirable for us in particular products.